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CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR
Danger
Death is pretty fucking painless when all is said and done.
I don’t feel a goddamn thing, not the broken ribs, not the gashes to my arms, chest, back and thighs from the crowbar Derby is wielding so expertly. I don’t feel my broken nose or cracked eye-socket. I don’t feel the bruises or the deep gash to my head that sent me free-falling into the arms of darkness.
I don’t feel anything.
But I do hear something.
A scream.
A fucking cry of pain so loud, so deafening, that even in the throes of death it drives a hook into my soul and drags me back from the motherfucking light at the end of the tunnel.
A light that shouldn’t welcome the likes of me, butdoes.
It comes again, and again and again. Her screams punctuated with my name.
Beast. Beast. Beast. BEAST!
It’s familiar, her voice, and the pain within it is like a fist wrapping around my heart and forcing it to pump faster, harder, until death crawls away and the light fades, leaving me with nothing but excruciating pain and a banging fucking headache.
Right now, I can do nothing other than feel.
Feel the pain.
Feel the bloody canvas beneath my cheek.
Feel fingers pinch my skin as someone tries to roll me over.
Feel a heart breaking open with every second I don’t respond.
“Beast, please wake up!”
Princess.
Kate.
But try as I might, I can’t fucking move.
I can barely fucking breathe.
I’m incapable of anything other than holding on to her voice, using it to ground me, to lure me back to consciousness, one painful breath at a time. More noise filters into my brain that’s rapidly trying to make sense of the situation. Memories piece together as the sound of a man yelling at everyone to get the fuck out rings in the air.
Dom.
Deeper voices merge with the cacophony of sound, Kate’s sobs a burden as she lies across my back, pawing at me now. Yet I remain still, weighted down by her grief. Fuck knows I want to reassure her, I want to tell her that I’m alive, that I’ve survived the single hardest fight of my life, but that would be a lie.
The biggest fight is yet to come.
So I lay here instead, on the blood-splattered canvas, and wait for my other senses to return one by one, drawing on every last drop of strength left in my body and gathering it together so I can do what I must and protect the woman I love.
After sound and touch, scent returns. The smell of blood, metallic and meaty. I’m surrounded by the stench of it. Fucking choking on it.
Next it’s sight. Spots of colour invade my vision as I slowly crack open my eyes a sliver. The world reappears in shades of red first. There’s blood everywhere, a huge fucking pool of it that I’m lying in. But as I focus, trying to ignore the metallic stench of butchered flesh, my gaze falls to a wide-eyed Derby, his sightless eyes unseeing, the knife I impaled him with sticking out of his gut, the serrated edge making mincemeat of his bowels. Didn’t stop him from bringing down the crowbar on my head though. The last thing I remember is blood spurting from his lips before the world went black.
He’s dead.
